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Practical  Ideals  in 


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Medical  Mission  Work 


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JEFFERYS 


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‘.'i- " ” ' •J'.  •..'K^'  *••■■  T;  i- 


Practical  Ideals  in 
Medical  Mission  W ork 


“FREELY  YE  HAVE  RECEIVED” 
“ I WAS  AN  HUNGERED  ” 

“IF  YE  LOVE  ME  ” 


BY  william  HAMILTON  JEFFERYS,  M.l).  \87)- 
St.  Luke’s  Hospital,  Shanghai,  China 


PUBLISHED  PY 

THE  DOMESTIC  AND  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  SOCIETY  OF  THE  PR0TF;.STANT 
EPISCOPAE  CHURCH  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 
281  Fourth  Avenue,  New  York,  N.  Y. 


Pa.Yn-  yyi  ed.  ~yyi.  l ss  , 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE 


The  three  papers  iu  this  pamphlet  originally  appeared  in  The  Spirit  OF  INIiS 
SIGNS,  a monthly  magazine  published  by  the  Domestic  and  Foreign  Missionar;, 
Society  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States.  Their  graphic 
account  of  facts  and  conditions  wholly  unsuspected  by  most  people  in  this 
country  made  a deep  impression.  From  many  quarters  has  come  the  request  that  they 
might  be  issued  in  permanent  form. 

The  work  of  a man  like  Dr.  Jefferys  needs  no  commendation  from  me.  The  papers 
themselves  tell  eloquently  of  a high  degree  of  professional  skill  united  to  and  guided  by 
a profound  spiritual  purpose. 

The  motive  of  medical  missions  is  to  be  found  not  merely  in  the  feeling  of  pity 
which  such  facts  as  those  told  in  the  first  paper  must  arouse  in  the  heart  of  every  normal 
man  or  woman.  That  motive,  good  as  it  may  be  in  itself,  is  not  sufficiently  fundamental 
to  withstand  the  shock  of  disappointment  and  failure  or  the  numbing  effect  of  famil- 
iarity with  suffering.  Medical  missions,  like  all  other  missions,  must  be  rooted  in  the 
fact  of  the  Incarnation.  Our  Lord,  taking  our  human  nature  upon  Him  and  living  for  a 
time  in  a human  body,  has  taught  us  forever  the  worth  of  that  human  form.  Upon  that 
fact  rests  the  enduring  and  compelling  motive  for  medical  missions. 

And  the  purpose  of  the  mission  hospital  is  not  to  relieve  all  the  needless  pain 
of  the  non-Christian  world.  It  would  be  next  to  impossible  for  the  Church  in  the 
United  States  to  send  a sufficient  number  of  physicians  and  nurses  or  to  establish 
hospitals  enough  to  redeem  completely  the  wilderness  of  unnecessary  suffering  in 
heathendom.  The  purpose  of  medical  missions,  regarded  from  the  scientific  stand- 
point, is  rather  to  show  to  native  peoples  the  better  way,  in  the  confidence  that, 
when  once  they  understand,  they  will  be  eager  to  do  for  themselves  what  must  now  be 
done  for  them.  That  this  is  no  vain  hope  has  been  abundantly  demonstrated  by  the 
successful  work  of  several  of  the  young  Chinese  physicians  who  in  recent  years  have 
been  trained  at  St.  Luke’s.  Every  Christian  hospital  in  heathen  linds  is  a recruiting 
st  .tion  for  nat.ve  practitioners,  just  as  every  mission  congregation  is  a recruiting  station 
for  th;  native  ministry.  But  lying  back  of  this  purpose  of  medical  missions  is  ever  the 
supreme  aim  of  all  mission  work — to  make  our  Lord  known  to  the  world.  The  mission 
hospital  often  opens  a way  for  the  Gospel  by  interpreting  the  Christian  message  in  the 
universally  understood  language  of  helpful  service. 

St.  Luke’s  Hospital  is  the  result  of  the  professional  skill  of  Dr.  Boone  and  Dr. 
Jefferys,  aided  by  the  fine  Christian  generosity  of  Mr.  C.  P.  B.  Jefferj’S,  of  Philadelphia. 
It  is  one  of  the  best  equipped  institutions  of  its  kind  anywhere  in  the  mission  field.  But 
the  pressure  upon  it  is  so  great  and  the  opportunities  for  service  so  numerous  that  its 
recently  enlarged  accommodations  are  already  overtaxed.  Without  delay  a new  build- 
ing, to  include  eye  wards,  nurses’  quarters,  kitchen,  etc.,  must  be  erected  at  a cost  of 
not  less  than  fio,ooo.  Somewhere  in  this  American  Church  there  is  someone  who,  in 
recognition  of  many  mercies,  will  desire  to  make  this  enlargement  possible.  Whether 
or  not  this  shall  be  done  depends  not  at  all  upon  what  people  are  pleased  to  describe  as 
“interest  in  missions,”  but,  as  Dr.  Jefferys  says,  upon  “what  each  of  us  iu  his  heart  really 
thinks  about  The  Man." 

October  1908.  JOHN  W.  WOOD. 


1658 


TO  THOSE  WHO  LOVE  WAY  OUT 
INTO  CHINA 


'T  ^ rE  cannot  imagine  our  Lord  calculating 
Y y the  effects  of  His  works  of  mercy  and 
estimating  their  attractive  power,  hut 
we  feel  instinctively  that  His  works  of  heal- 
ing were  the  natural  showing  forth  of  His 
love  to  meu,  worked  broadly  and  generously 
as  God  always  works.”  — Bishop  Graves. 


I. 


^‘FREELY  YE  HAVE  RECEIVED!”^ 

SOMEWHAT  ABOUT  NATIVE  METHODS  OF  MEDI- 
CAL PRACTICE  IN  CHINA,  AND  A COMPARISON 

BY  W.  H.  JEFFERYS,  A.M.,  M.D. 


IT  is  a fact  well  known  to  medical 
men,  that  scientific  medicine  has 
derived  a few  of  its  most  useful 
agents  from  those  whom  we  are  in 
the  habit  of  calling  primitive  races. 
Quinine,  calabar  bean,  opium,  cocaine 
and  several  other  of  our  trusted  drugs 
were  ‘received,  so  to  speak,  out  of  the 
very  hands  of  peoples  less  civilized  than 
ourselves  and  having  passed  through  our 
laboratories  have  taken  their  place  in  the 
larger  practice.  It  is  altogether  natural, 
then,  that  those  of  us  who  have  chosen 
to  devote  ourselves  to  the  planting  of 
scientific  medicine  in  China,  and  stand 
on  the  firing  line  of  her  progress,  should 
look  with  keenest  interest  to  the  native 
practice  of  the  land  for  something  of 
worth  in  the  treatment  of  disease,  which 
may  pass  through  our  hands  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  world  at  large.  This  has 
been  the  hobby  of  many  a medical  mis- 
sionary. It  has  proved  a fascinating 
study,  hut  in  China,  alas ! a comparative- 
ly profitless  one.  It  is  a disappoint- 
ment to  us  to  be  compelled  to  report  that 
the  splendid  race  of  men  which,  even  in 
a material  way,  has  given  to  the  world 
gunpowder,  the  printing  press,  the  mar- 
iner’s compass  and  other  priceless  treas- 
ures, has,  up  to  the  present  time,  af- 
forded us  nothing  in  the  treatment  of 
disease  which  is  not  already  in  better 
form  in  the  hands  of  our  profession.  It 
is  true,  for  instance,  that  the  Chinese 
innoculate  against  small-pox,  that  is, 
they  innoculate  the  mucous  membrane  of 


♦ An  address  delivered  before  the  Churchmen's  Club 
of  the  Diocese  of  Maryland,  Ealtimore,  April  27th,  1905. 


the  nose  of  a child  with  the  dread  virus 
itself,  in  order  to  produce  the  disease, 
small-pox,  in  the  child,  because  they  be- 
lieve the  disease  is  apt  to  take  on  a 
milder  form  if  thus  induced.  They 
argue  that  as  he  will  surely  have  the 
disease  some  time,  he  had  better  have  it 
in  early  childhood  and  get  done  with  it. 
But  there  is  no  comparison  between  this 
and  the  cleanly  vaccination  with  cow- 
pox  to  prevent  the  greater  evil.  Yet,  I 
say,  the  study  of  the  medicine  of  China 
has  its  fascination,  as  well  as  its  applica- 
tion to  the  question  of  medical  missions 
there,  and  I have  therefore  thought  to 
speak  to  you  briefly  concerning  the 
native  methods  of  medical  practice  in 
China. 

I allude,  of  course,  to  the  old  empir 
ical  practice  of  the  land — a practice 
-which  finds  its  origin  away  back  in  the 
beginnings  of  history,  which  is  crowned 
with  the  honorable  gray  hairs  of  cen- 
turies of  work,  which  has  the  faith  of  the 
nation  which  it  serves.  Let  me  then  make 
two  things  plain  to  you  at  the  outset. 
First,  that  I hear  no  manner  of  grudge 
against  that  practice.  To  the  best  of  its 
ability  it  has  served  the  Chinese  people 
for  centuries  and  cared  for  their  sick. 
For  the  fact  that  the  best  has  been  a 
poor  best,  the  poverty  of  the  Chinese, 
their  seclusion  and  the  lovelessness  of 
their  religious  faith  will  win  our  for- 
giveness. Of  those  to  whom  so  iittle  is 
given,  little  must  be  required.  Second- 
ly. you  will  note,  that,  if  we  are  to  speak 
fairly  and  in  a truly  scientific  spirit  of 
the  medicine  of  China,  we  must  speak  of 
the  purest  of  its  practice  and  not  con- 


(5) 


(6) 


THE  MEDICAL  STAFF  AT  ST.  LUKE  S HOSPITAL 


“Freely  Ye  Have  Received!” 


7 


fuse  the  regular  practitioner  with  the 
man  who  sells  dried  horrors  on  the  side- 
walk. It  is  probably  true  that  there  is 
not  a native  doctor  of  the  old  school  who 
does  not  time  and  again  resort  to 
charms,  talismans,  fake  and  quackery, 
and  it  is  certainly  a fact  that  the  whole 
practice  is  fairly  swamped  in  a mire 
of  superstition  such  as  the  world  has 
rarely,  if  ever,  seen  before.  Yet,  I main- 
tain that,  strictly  speaking,  it  is  no  more 
fair  to  include  these  things  in  a discus- 
sion of  the  Chinese  practice  of  medi- 
cine than  it  would  be  if,  in  speaking  of 
our  practice,  they  should  include  the  ir- 
regular practices  of  Christian  Science  or 
of  hydropathy,  or  any  other  kind  of 
diluted  science  or  if,  in  speaking  of  our 
religious  faith,  they  should  include  Mor- 
monism  or  Dowieism  or  any  other  kind 
of  refined  humbug.  That  some  doctors 
in  China  use  the  fortune  teller’s  disk 
does  not  make  the  disk  a medical  in- 
strument, any  more  than  the  fact  that 
some  of  our  benighted  legislatures  call 
certain  fads  systems  of  medicine,  will 
make  the  wiggling  of  bones  cure  brain 
abscess  or  appendicitis. 

The  Great  Dragon  Festival 

In  the  fourth  Chinese  moon,  that  is, 
toward  the  end  of  May,  the  nation  cele- 
brates its  greatest  calendar  feast,  the 
Dragon  Festival — the  dragon  being  the 
national  beast  (perhaps  one  should  say 
reptile)  and  the  beast  of  good  omen.  In 
the  larger  cities  this  feast  is  usually  cel- 
ebrated by  a huge  procession  upon  which 
is  expended  a vast  amount  of  funds  and 
trouble.  The  procession  is  divided  into 
five  parts,  and  each  part  is  in  honor  of, 
and  led  by,  a deity,  and  finished  oflE  by  a 
long  dragon.  These  five  deities  are  the 
personification  or  spiritualization  of  the 
five  natural  elements,  Kyung — metal, 
Moh — wood,  8z — water,  T'oo — earth,  and 
Hoo — fire.  As  they  are  the  five  ele- 
ments of  Chinese  nature,  so  they  go  to 
the  complete  make  up  of  the  human 
body,  its  chemistry  and  its  physiology. 
Health — that  is  a proper  balance  of  the 
five  elements.  Disease — that  is  an 


improper  balance.  Too  much  fire — that 
is  fever.  It  takes  a great  deal  of  water 
to  cool  it  down.  Too  much  Watet — ^^that 
is  dropsy,  and  it  takes  a whole  lot  of 
earth  or  fire  to  do  away  with  that.  This 
is  pathology  in  a nutshell. 

It  is  ordinarily  supposed  that  the  Chi- 
nese have  no  idea  of  anatomy  because 
they  do  not  dissect  the  human  body. 
But  they  do  know  pretty  well  where  the 
larger  organs  lie.  They  know  that  the 
heai-t  is  here,  and  the  lungs  are  here; 
that  the  stomach  is  there  and  the  liver 
there.  It  is  true  that  they  have  over- 
looked the  very  existence  of  so  impor- 
tant an  organ  as  the  pancreas,  and  that 
their  knowledge  of  histology  is  strictly 
limited  to  the  future,  yet  they  cannot 
be  said  to  know  nothing  of  anatomy.  It 
is  rather  in  the  relationship  and  func- 
tion of  the  organs  that  they  seem  to 
have  gone  hopelessly  astray.  The  heart 
thinks;  the  liver  is  the  seat  of  the  soul, 
and  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
digestion;  courage  resides  in  the  gall- 
bladder and  so  it  comes  about  that  bile 
is  the  medicine  to  sustain  the  faint- 
hearted. To  this  end  there  is  no  com- 
parison between  the  bile  of  a tiger  or  of 
a brave,  but  executed,  robber  and  the 
bile  of  a mere  baa-lamb.  The  spleen 
aids  in  digestion  and  food  passes 
through  it  into  the  stomach.  The  large 
intestines  are  connected  with  the  lungs, 
the  small  with  the  heart.  Tendon  and 
nerve  have  the  very  same  name,  kyung. 
And  this  is  the  basis  on  which  the  Chi- 
nese does  his  therapy. 

How  to  Become  a Physician  in  China 

To  become  a physician  a Chinaman 
states  to  his  friends  and  neighbors,  “I 
am  a physician.”  This  is  the  limit  of 
required  preparation.  His  diploma  is  the 
more  or  less  handsome  sign-board 
which  announces  his  determination  to 
the  neighborhood.  It  is  a fine  start  for 
a man  if  his  father  was  a physician  be- 
fore him  not,  however,  because  of  sup- 
posed inherited  professional  gifts,  unless 
his  father’s  prescribing  manual  be  con- 
sidered in  this  class ; and  as  for  a grand- 
father and  two  books  of  prescriptions, 


8 


“Freely  Ye  Have  Received!” 


A CHINESE  PHYSICIAN'S  IDEA  OF  HOW 
TO  CURE  A COUGH 

Thirteen  drugs  and  their  red  paper  wrapper 


without  having  performed  this  last  great 
duty,  it  will  not  really  affect  the  ques- 
tion materially,  for  the  son  will  claim  to 
know  the  secrets  just  the  same. 

How  a Chinese  Physician  Treats 
His  Patients 

When  the  doctor  receives  his  patient 
he  places  him  opposite  his  august  self 
at  the  table  and  begins  and  ends  by  feel- 
ing his  various  pulses,  two  at  a time, 
for  these  alone  are  sufficient  to  reveal  to 
him  the  entire  internal  situation.  A 
strong  pulse — that  means  this  organ  is 
so;  a weak  pulse — that  organ  is  thus; 
a middling-sized  pulse — well,  that 
means  something  still  different.  He 
may  ask  a question  or  two  to  pass  the 
time  of  day.  It  does  not  matter  much, 
for  what  he  cannot  tell  from  the  pulses 
is  beneath  any  mortal  use.  And  then  he 
writes  his  prescription,  and  then  he  col- 
lects his  fee,  if  he  has  not  already  at- 
tended to  that  little  formality,  as  he 
probably  has. 

A Typical  Chinese  Prescription 


that  is  unspeakable  riches,  if  not  wis- 
dom. 

Ethics!  As  far  as  I can  make  out, 
there  are  two  points  in  Chinese  med- 
ical ethics.  First,  never  do  any  earthly 
thing  for  anybody  unless  there  is  money 
in  it,  and  make  your  deal  in  advance. 
This  gentle  custom  puts  charitable 
works  utterly  beyond  the  pale  of  com- 
mon sense.  Second,  if  by  any  lucky 
chance  you  should  discover,  or  make 
folks  think  it,  a professional  secret  of 
value ; as  you  long  for  the  worship  of  your 
children’s  children,  keep  that  precious 
secret  hidden  in  the  very  deepest  re- 
cesses of,  I suppose  I should  say,  your 
liver,  lest  some  other  human  being  than 
yourself  should  make  money  out  of  it. 
Then,  as  the  old  physician  draws  near 
to  his  appointed  time,  he  will  call  to 
him  his  eldest  son  and,  in  all  the  solem- 
nity of  the  hour,  reveal  to  him  alone  the 
treasured  secrets  of  his  life.  In  case, 
however,  he  should  be  so  unkind  as  to 
depart  this  life  without  due  notice  and 


My  assistant,  at  my  behest,  went  once 
last  winter  to  consult  a native  practi- 
tioner for  a severe  cough  and  allowed 
himself  to  be  prescribed  for.  Here  is 
the  actual  prescription  on  paper  and 
also  as  put  up  by  a Chinese  pharmacy. 
It  gives  the  patient’s  name,  then  the 
diagnosis  of  the  trouble.  This  is  fol- 
lowed by  a statement  of  the  condition 
of  the  pulses  on  which  the  diagnosis  was 
made.  Finally  it  calls  for  the  thirteen 
drugs  which  I have  put  into  these  thir- 
teen foreign  bottles,  partly  for  conven- 
ience, but  chiefly  in  order  that  I might 
live  in  the  same  house  with  them,  and 
other  Chinese  drugs.  They  should  each 
be  wrapped  in  a separate  white  paper 
and  then  all  together  in  a red  sheet. 
The  thirteen  drugs  are  as  follows; 


Baked  barley, 

Sugar, 

Masbed  beans, 
Bamboo  shavings, 
A root. 

Another  root, 

Still  another  root. 


Chalk, 

Melon  seeds, 

Mashed  and  fermented 
melon  seeds, 

A mashed  pebble. 

Some  wild  flowers, 

A broken  clam  shell. 


“Freely  Ye  Have  Received!” 


9 


The  prescription  calls  for  the  boiling 
together  of  these  ingredients  in  a large 
quantity  of  water  and  for  the  whole  to 
be  taken  rapidly  at  one  dose.  That  for 
a cough!  It  does  seem  as  if  the  doctor 
must  hit  the  mark  somehow,  with  so 
many  shot  in  his  gun. 

Other  drugs  in  common  use  are  cock- 
roaches, fossils,  rhinocerous  skin,  shav- 
ings, silk-worms,  crude  calomel,  human 
secretions,  rhubarb,  asbestos,  moths, 
oyster  shells,  maggots,  centipedes,  cater- 
pillars, toads,  lizzards  and  cicada 
shells.  Just  why  cicada  shells  should 
be  the  great  nervous  sedative  of 
China  it  is  not  easy  to  see.  It  is  true 
that  their  ideas  of  music  are  not  the 
same  as  ours,  but,  have  you  ever  heard 
a chain  gang  of  cicadae  get  really 
down  to  solid  work  on  a hot  summer 
night?  And  the  shells  are  the  weapons 
with  which  they  do  it  aU.  In  most  of 
their  animal  drugs  the  Chinese  are 
strictly  homeopathic  in  aim,  barring 
dosage,  as  when  they  give  tiger’s  bones 
as  a tonic  in  debility,  because  the  tiger 
is  such  a strong  animal;  but  this  cicada 
business  seems  to  work  on  strictly  allo- 
pathic lines. 

As  Dr.  Williams  says,  “anything  in- 
deed that  is  thoroughly  disgusting  in 
the  three  kingdoms  of  nature,  is  consid- 
ered good  for  medicinal  use,”  and  the 
worst  of  it  all  is,  they  do  not  just  take 
medicine  as  we  do,  they  literally  and 
truly  “eat”  it,  so  large  is  the  size  of  the 
average  dose.  The  word  for  this  func- 
tion in  China  is  Chuh,  to  eat.  I have 
a Chinese  pill,  a tonic  for  the  weak,  and 
it  measures  an  inch  across  and  weighs 
half  an  ounce.  Here  are  smaller  ones 
for  bronchitis.  The  dose  is  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  pills.  Here  is  the 
dragon-festival  powder,  of  which  the 
average  dose  is  two  tablespoonsful  to  a 
man,  at  the  feast,  to  keep  off  evil  spirits, 
which  is  of  course  considered  a distinct 
disease  by  the  Chinese. 

Such  is  the  ne  h’oo,  the  internal  med- 
icine of  China. 

Chinese  hygiene  is  almost  unspeak- 
able. It  is  said  that  one  smells  China  a 
hundred  miles  out  to  sea.  A fellow  mis- 


SOME  TYPICAL  CHINESE  REMEDIES 

Over  the  table  is  a bracelet  to  keep  off  cholera. 
Underneath  is  the  round  box  in  which  it  came. 
On  the  table  from  left  to  right: — A dose  of 
dragon-festival  powder  to  ward  off  evil  spir- 
its; a pill  for  a cough,  with  directions  for 
taking  the  same,  hanging  on  the  wall;  a pill 
for  a child;  small  pills  150  to  a dose;  oil  of 
peppermint ; morphine  pills  to  cure  the  opium 
habit;  pieces  of  tortoise  shell  and  locust 
shells,  both  being  nervous  sedatives 

sionary  used  to  send  outside  of  the  city 
gate  of  Wusih  every  day  to  get  his 
drinking  water  where  it  was  supposed  to 
be  a bit  less  terrible  than  near  his  house, 
the  natural  place  for  a native  to  take 
it  from.  I happened  one  morning  to  be 
passing  through  the  gate  and  took  a 
photograph  of  the  crystal  stream.  There 
was  a huge  dead  dog  in  the  centre  of  the 
picture.  Now,  my  friend  probably  gets 
his  water  from  some  other  spot,  but  it 
is  a matter  of  mere  sentiment  after  all, 
for,  aside  from  the  idea  involved,  it  is 
not  probable  that  he  has  improved  his 
condition  a whit.  If  it  is  not  dog,  it  is 
something  worse.  The  facts  that  the  na- 
tion lives  out  of  doors,  that  it  does  not 
drink  milk  at  all  and  never  drinks  cold 
water,  are  probably  responsible  for  its 
being  “still  about.” 


10 


“Freely  Ye  Flave  Received!” 


The  Treatment  of  “Outside”  Diseases 

Surgery,  nga-h’oo,  or  external  medi- 
cine, is  represented  by  several  proced- 
ures, operative  and  otherwise.  Such  a 
poultice  as  half  a raw  chicken  is  com- 
mon, and  nearly  every  patient  that  comes 
to  us  has  one  of  the  large  gummy  opium 
plasters  on  some  carefully  selected  spot. 
These  latter  have  probably  the  sugges- 
tion of  therapeutic  value.  A set  of 
surgical  knives  is  represented  in  one  of 
the  photographs.  They  are,  how- 
ever, never  used  to  cut,  but  merely 
to  dig  and  gouge.  Practically  they  are 
chiropody  instruments.  Why  do  they 
not  cut  with  them?  Simply  because  they 
cannot  control  hemorrhage.  Our  pa- 
tients do  not,  except  when  they  come  di- 
rectly from  some  foreign  hong,  show 
that  they  have  even  the  knowledge  of 
the  stick  and  handkerchief  tourniquet. 
They  usually  stuff  the  wound  with  to- 
bacco, earth,  or  a filthy  rag.  If  a mem- 
ber is  all  but  removed  by  accident,  the 
Chinese  have  been  known  to  assist  mild- 
ly in  severing  the  last  link. 

The  Deadly  Acupuncture  Needle 

The  surgical  instrument  best  known 
to  the  Chinese  is  the  deadly  acupunc- 
ture needle,  and  I say  “deadly”  with  the 
full  weight  of  the  word.  It  is  used  to 
produce  counter  irritation,  and  there 
are  one  hundred  spots  known  to  the 
surgeon  into  which  it  may  be  stuck 
without  resulting  in  immediate  death. 
The  muscles  are  the  favorite  choice,  but 
I have  seen  the  result  of  these  filthy 
needles  having  been  passed  into  hernial 
sacks,  and  I have  had  two  patients  come 
to  us  for  treatment  for  general  infec- 
tion of  the  eye  which  was  caused  by 
these  needles  having  been  passed  clean 
(or  rather  dirty)  through  the  eyeball 
in  the  treatment  of  trachoma.  It  is 
needless  to  say  there  resulted  all  that 
could  be  desired  in  the  way  of  a hand- 
some counter  irritation  and  that  the 
total  loss  of  the  eye  in  each  case  was  the 
end  thereof.  For  this,  however,  the 
Chinese  surgeon  did  not  take  the  blame, 
because  the  patient  could  still  see  a lit- 
tle two  days  after  the  operation. 


Abscesses  are  treated  by  the  needles, 
but  if,  by  any  chance,  anything  threat- 
ens to  leak  out  of  the  abscess  through 
the  puncture  hole,  the  surgeon  imme- 
diately slaps  on  a large  plaster  to  stick 
it  up  tight. 

Time  fails  to  tell  of  all  the  marvels ! 
How  they  make  incisor  teeth  and  tie 
them  to  the  adjacent  eye  teeth  by  means 
of  cat-gut;  how  they  operate  for  en- 
tropion by  pinching  the  eyelid  between 
two  bamboo  sticks  and  binding  them 
tight  with  thread  till  the  skin  becomes 
gangrenous  and  finally  drops  off,  a pro- 
cedure which  may  help  matters  some- 
what, but  which  is  horribly  painful,  and 
often  results  in  inability  to  close 
the  eyelid;  how  they  use  a set  of  sharp 
and  filthy  instruments  to  remove  wax 
from  the  ears,  which  by  scratching  or 
puncturing  the  drumhead  brings  about 
half  the  worst  ear  disease  of  China. 

Such  is  the  old  empirical  practice  of 
China.  Have  I treated  the  subject 
trifiingly  ? The  laughable  side  of  Chi- 
nese medicine  begins  with  the  quackery 
and  superstition  which  I have  not 
even  touched  upon.  In  them  there  lies 
a wealth  of  the  bizarre,  such  as  would 
make  the  foregoing  read  like  Baxter’s 
Saints’  Best.  I asked  a Chinese  once 
whether  this  was  a strictly  fair  picture 
of  the  medicine  of  China.  The  answer 
was,  “Perfectly  so,  so  far  as  I know,  ex- 
cept that  in  the  province  I come  from, 
we  do  not  have  things  quite  so  nice.  In 
fact  some  of  these  instruments,  our 
surgeons  do  not  know  yet.”  Fortunate- 
ly, I thought  in  my  heart.  No,  this  is 
the  serious  part!  This,  of  which  I have 
told  you,  is  the  deadly  earnest  part,  and 
though  you  have  found  somewhat  to 
smile  at  as  you  have  listened,  under- 
neath my  words  you  must  have  heard 
a terrible  cry  for  help:  Women  in 
the  agonies  of  impossible  labor,  the 
insane  chained  or  in  cages,  blind 
girls  sold  into  the  hell  of  Chinese 
slavery,  blind  men  standing  on  the 
streets  who,  when  they  hear  the  click  of 
the  foreigner’s  heel  on  the  pavement, 
still  cry  aloud  “Master,  Master,  have 
pity!” 


“ Freely  Ye  Have  Keceived  ! ” 


11 


THE  SOURCE  OF  WUSIH’S  WATER  SUPPLY 


thesia  and  asepsis  by  means  of  which, 
even  in  the  heart  of  China,  we  remove 
tumors  larger  and  heavier  than  our  pa- 
tients’ bodies,  and  the  patients  live  back 
into  health;  the  practice  of  Osier,  of 
Halstead  and  of  Kelly,  and  of  the  hos- 
pital of  Johns  Hopkins  University. 
You  who  live  in  the  centre  of  the 
great  light,  I need  not  tell  you  what 
it  is.  Was  it  worth  while  to  give 
it  to  the  Japanese?  The  American 
Church  and  her  missionaries  thought  so, 
and  the  Japanese  think  so  too,  and  to- 
day the  old  practice  is  against  the  law 
of  the  land,  and  I doubt  if  one  could 
find  it  even  in  the  Hokkaido.  Was  it 
worth  while?  We  are  sending  envoys 
out  to  Manchuria  to  learn  how  the  Jap- 
anese army  and  navy  medical  corps  do 
their  work  so  excellently.* 

China  Sixty  Years  After 

And  how  about  China?  There  are  al- 
ready 250  or  more  mission  hospitals  and 


Scientific  Medicine  in  Japan 

Sixty  years  or  so  ago,  the  very  name 
of  scientific  medicine  was  practically 
unknown  in  the  Empire  of  Japan.  They 
too  used  some  form  of  this  old  em- 
pirical practice  and  I understand  that 
they  derived  it  in  measure  from  China. 
Then  scientific  medicine  was  offered 
them  as  a substitute  for  the  old,  and 
was  largely  introduced  by  medical  mis- 
sionaries not  only  into  civil  practice, 
but  especially  into  both  the  army  and 
navy.  Was  it  worth  the  trouble?  It  de- 
pends, does  it  not,  on  what  we  think  of 
scientific  medicine,  the  practice  to 
which  truth  is  all  in  all,  which  has  a 
code  of  ethics  making  it  a professional 
crime  for  a man  who  knows  anything 
worth  the  knowing  to  hide  it  from  the 
world’s  free  service,  the  practice  which 
studies  its  anatomy  with  a one-twelfth 
power  oil  immersion  lens,  which  in- 
vented vaccination,  diphtheria  antitoxin, 
and  the  innoculation  to  prevent  hydro- 
phobia; which  invented  X-rays,  anjes- 


* The  Emperor  has  just  decorated  Dr. 
Hepbourn  on  the  occasion  of  his  ninetieth  birth- 
day. 


CHI.MESE  PLASTERS  AND  A CHART  GIVING 
DIRECTIONS  FOR  THEIR  USE 


12 


‘•Freely  Ye  Have  Eeceived!” 


i 

L . 


SOME  INSTRUMENTS  FROM  THE  EQUIP- 
MENT OF  A CHINESE  PHYSICIAN 

The  group  includes  among  other  things,  specta- 
cles and  case,  razor,  ear-cleaning  instruments 
atid  case,  four  surgical  knives,  native-made 
hypodermic  needle  and  case,  acupuncture 
needles,  fortune-teller’s  disc,  etc. 

dispensaries,  over  300  foreign  physi- 
cians, some  5,000  trained  native  assist- 
ants, and  we  treat  over  2,000,000  pa- 
tients a year.  I know  a native  in  Wusih, 
practising  good  scientific  medicine, 
charging  small  fees  and  making  $5,000 
a year.  Last  winter,  in  St.  Luke’s  Hos- 
intal,  Shanghai,  in  my  surgical  wards, 
several  months  went  by  without  our  hav- 
ing an  empty  bed  over  night. 

Sixty  years  from  now.  if  we  do  our 
duty,  we  shall  look  for  the  old  empirical 
practice  in  the  Chinese  empire,  and 
shall  not  find  it  with  a Lick  telescope. 

What  Can  be  Done  for  the  Army 
of  China’s  Blind 

The  day  of  argument  for  medical  mis- 
sions is  in  truth  past  and  gone,  and 
those  who  do  not  believe  in  them  simply 
do  not  know.  Yet,  in  the  comparison  of 
these  medical  methods,  the  old  and  the 


new,  every  reasonable  man  must  surely 
find  good  ground  for  the  renewing  of  his 
faith.  There  is  in  it  no  appeal  to  the 
emotions.  Yet,  if  I could,  I would  take 
you  men  into  the  wards  of  St.  Luke’s 
Hospital  for  a time.  Every  little  while 
there  comes  into  the  hospital  a man 
with,  let  us  say,  cataract.  He  is  blind, 
has  been  blind  for  from  five  to  twenty 
years,  and  there  is  no  more  agonizing 
blindness  than  that  of  the  man  who  used 
to  see.  He  is  admitted,  and  after  due 
preparation,  under  cocaine  and  by 
means  of  the  most  delicate  and  most 
beautiful  operation  in  all  surgery,  we  re- 
move the  cataract.  Within  the  space  of 
ten  minutes  he  looks  up  into  our  faces 
and  says  “T’ong-Ica,  ngoo  k’oen  tuh 
Jcyien  huh!’’  (Master,  I can  see!)  And 
a month  later  he  is  sitting  in  our  office 
reading  the  newspaper.  This  is  a mat- 
ter of  the  emotions,  but  there  lies  in 
these  common  incidents  of  hospital  life 
a warrant  for  medical  missions  in  the 
white  light  of  which  all  fine  financial 
calculations  and  every  scientific  discus- 
sion inevitably  shrivel  up,  as  mere  words 
in  the  presence  of  works,  as  dead  things 
give  place  to  the  living.  There  waits  in 
China  to-day  an  army  of  100,000  blind, 
perfectly  curable  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren, and  there  they  remain,  day  by  day, 
year  by  year,  in  their  unending  night, 
waiting,  waiting,  waiting. 

And  bound  up  with  this  question  is 
that  larger  one,  yet  like  it.  Is  it  worth 
while  to  present  our  faith  to  the  Chinese 
people?  Here  again  it  is  a question  of 
what  we  think  of  it,  of  our  faith.  Is  our 
great  Ideal  of  human  life  worth  giving 
to  the  Chinese?  Each  must  settle  that 
question  for  himself.  The  Church,  of 
course,  has  taken  her  stand.  It  will  take 
longer  than  to  give  them  scientific  med- 
icine, but  then  the  goal  is  in  the  stars. 
It  has  taken  1,600  years  to  make  Eng- 
land half  Christian,  and  it  may  take  as 
long  in  China,  but  even  so,  when  we  call 
to  mind  many  a Christian  home  in 
China  and  compare  it  with  its  heathen 
neighbor,  when  we  compare  the  worship 
of  the  joss  house  with  the  worship  of  the 
Holy  Trinity,  when  we  but  think  of  the 


13 


“Freely  Ye  Have  Received!” 


character  of  Jesus  Christ,  even  the  Man, 
we  missionaries  have  no  doubt  that  it 
is  unspeakably  worth  while,  as  worth 
while  as  the  work  of  St.  Paul  in  Rome, 
of  Augustine  in  England,  as  worth  while 
as  anything  in  the  world  that  a man  can 
give  his  life  to.  But  you  say  we  mis- 
sionaries are  enthusiasts.  Well,  so  be 
it!  I,  for  one,  plead  guilty.  But  I tell 
you  that,  down  on  the  bed  rock,  it  is  not 
a question  of  enthusiasm,  it  is  a ques- 
tion of  what  each  in  his  heart  really 
thinks  about  The  Man. 

What  $8.50  Will  Do 

I have  already  said  of  the  Chinese 
people,  with  regard  to  their  medicine, 
that  of  those  to  whom  little  has  been 
given,  little  will  be  required.  The 
same  is  true  of  their  faith.  But  to 
you,  men  of  Baltimore,  I would  say, 
to  you  who  live  in  the  very  centre 
of  the  land  of  promise,  in  your 
midst  is  the  heart  of  the  practice  whose 
central  love  is  “Truth,”  around  you,  on 
every  side,  is  the  Faith  whose  central 
truth  is  “Love.”  It  is  a living,  burn- 
ing truth  that  to  you  “to  whom  much 
has  been  given,  of  you  shall  much  be  re- 
quired.” There  is  no  possible  escape 
from  the  responsibilities  of  God’s  cir- 
cumstances. Of  you  it  will  certainly  he 
asked,  “Where  are”  not  the  one,  hut  “the 
ten  talents?”  You  had  in  abundance, 
and  they  were  in  want,  and  you  gave  it 
freely;  or  else,  you  did  not.  “I,  Christ, 
was  blind  and  ye  visited  me,”  or  else,  “ye 
did  not.” 

The  other  day,  a mission  Sunday- 
school  class  sent  us  $8.50  for  St.  Luke’s 
Hospital,  Shanghai,  and  in  acknowledg- 
ing it  I told  them  that  with  that  sum  I 
would,  God  willing,  restore  the  sight  of 


A LIST  OF  DRUGS  PROCURABLE  AT  A PAR- 
TICULAR NATIVE  DISPENSARY 
IN  SHANGHAI 


a stone  blind  man.  Eight  dollars  and 
fifty  cents  is  not  a great  deal  of  money, 
but  from  some  tiny  children  whose 
love  reached  away  out  into  China  it 
is  a fortune  of  love.  Really  this 
country  of  ours  is  beginning  to  give! 
And  I look  forward  with  faith  to 
the  time  when  she  will  have  taught  to 
the  world  the  imperial  lesson  of  giving 
royally,  when,  without  thought  of  cost, 
of  wealth,  of  work  or  of  life  itself  and  in 
something  of  the  glorious  selflessness  of 
the  Master  Physician,  having  freely 
received  beyond  every  nation  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  we  shall  also  have  freely 
given. 


THE  NEW  MAIN  BUILDING  OF  ST.  LUKE’S  HOSPITAL.  SHANGHAI 

II 

‘‘I  WAS  AN  HUNGERED”* 

THE  ESSENTIAL  CHRISTIANITY  OF  MEDICAL 

MISSIONS 

BY  W.  H.  JEFFERYS,  A.M.,  M.D. 


Not  infrequently  it  has  been 
mildly  suggested  to  me  that 
we  medical  missionaries  are 
too  prone  to  talk  about  the 
medical  side  of  our  work  to  the  exclu- 
sion, or  at  least  neglect,  of  its  spiritual 
aspect.  One  of  your  officers  has  par- 
ticularly asked  me  to  speak  to  you  to- 
day concerning  the  spiritual  aspect  of 
the  Church’s  medical  missionary  work 
in  Shanghai. 

It  will  perhaps  explain  to  some  extent 
our  evident  diffidence  in  the  matter 
when  I call  to  your  remembrance  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  particular  duty  of  our 
clerical  co-workers  to  speak  and  teach 
the  words  of  Jesus  and  the  words  writ- 
ten about  Him,  while  it  is  the  peculiar 


• An  address  delivered  before  the  Foreign 
Committee  of  the  Woman’s  Auxiliary  of  the 
Diocese  of  Pennsylvania,  March  20th,  i905. 

(14) 


function  of  the  medical  workers,  in  so 
far  as  they  may  attain  thereto,  to  work 
the  works  of  Jesus.  Is  then  our  diffi- 
dence other  than  natural? 

Yet  from  the  standpoint  of  the  home 
Churchman,  your  gentle  rebuke  has 
reason,  and  it  is  eminently  within  your 
rights  to  demand  of  us  that  we  make 
report  concerning  the  chiefest  work  and 
the  fruits  of  that  very  work  for  which 
you  send  us  abroad.  You  will  not,  how- 
ever, I believe,  be  disappointed  when  I 
tell  you  that  from  our  standpoint,  the 
standpoint  of  the  medical  missionaries 
who  are  doing  the  practical  work  in  the 
field,  there  is  but  one  aspect  to  our  work, 
and  that  is  the  spiritual.  It  is  true  that 
our  first  two  years  in  China  must  be 
largely  devoted  to  acquiring  the  lan- 
guage, and  Chinese  is  not  a spiritual 
language;  that  most  of  us  must  then 


15 


“ 1 Was  All  Hungered  ’ 


raise  money  to  build  our  hospital,  and 
begging  is  not  a spiritual  occupation; 
that  we  must  then  build  the  hospital 
under  our  own  direction;  that  we  must 
raise  the  money  to  furnish  it,  and  furnish 
it;  that  we  must  raise  the  support  of  it 
year  by  year  and  support  it;*  that  we 
must  find  assistants  and  train  them, 
doctors,  nurses  and  servants ; that  we 
must  buy  the  linen  and  drugs,  oversee 
the  kitchen  and  laundry,  and  generally 
attend  to  the  hospital  housekeeping. 
And  withal  we  must  do  an  amount  of 
medical  work  and  a number  of  surgical 
operations  and  dressings,  and  of  such  a 
character  as  would  strike  most  home 
physicians  as  an  enormous  day’s  work  by 
itself,  and  this  must  be  done  day  by  day 
and  year  by  year.  So,  it  appears,  the 
bulk  of  our  time  and  attention  is  given 
to  matters  unspiritual  in  character. 
Yet  I make  the  claim,  and  without  any 
hesitation,  for  as  one  of  the  editors  of 
our  medical  periodical  I have  had  the 
opportunity  of  meeting  many  of  them 
in  one  way  or  another,  I make  the  claim, 
I say,  that  there  is  not  a medical  mis- 
sionary in  the  whole  East  who  has  been 
in  the  work  as  long  as  three  years,  that 
is  there  with  any  other  primary  motive 
than  the  Christian  motive.  I really  do 
not  know  any  medical  man  or  woman 
out  there  who  is  giving  his  life  in  ser- 
vice to  those  peoples  (I  am  not  talking 
of  a court  physician  here  and  there  on  a 
huge  salary),  who  is  not  there  first  and 
last  for  the  Kingdom  of  God’s  sake. 

But,  you  will  say.  How  reconcile  this 
claim  with  the  facts  of  their  daily  liv- 
ing? 

St.  John,  in  his  first  epistle,  in  speak- 
ing of  the  Christian’s  fight  for  personal 
righteousness,  says,  “This  is  the  victory 
that  overcometh  the  world,  even  our 
faith,”  the  faith  that  Jesus  is  the  Son 


* St.  Luke’s  Hospital  Is  alone  among  our  for- 
eign missionary  hospitals  in  that  the  Church 
makes  no  appropriation  for  its  support,  beyond 
providing  for  the  stipends  of  the  American 
physicians  and  nurses.  All  running  expenses 
are  provided  locally,  either  through  the  fees 
received  or  through  the  gifts  of  Americans  and 
Chinese  resident  in  Shanghai.  All  mission  hos- 
pitals aim  at  self-support.  Those  of  our  own 
Church  are  steadily  reaching  this  goal. — Editok. 


of  God.  But  how  emphatically  St.  James 
puts  it,  that  this  very  faith  on  which 
the  victory  depends  “apart  from  works 
is  barren.”  Our  faith  is  in  China  to 
bear  fruit,  not  to  be  barren,  but,  I tell 
you,  you  might  as  well  expect  to  see 
roses  bloom  in  the  fertile  soil  of  an  ice- 
berg as  your  faith  bear  fruit  in  China 
without  works.  If  Jesus  could  not 
preach  His  own  Gospel  of  love  without 
living  a life  of  surpassing  tenderness 
and  helpfulness,  and  if  the  apostles  fol- 
lowed in  His  wisest  way,  we  can  hardly 
expect  to  do  better  than  follow  too. 
There  is  no  more  terrible  test  of  any 
man’s  faith  than  to  be  deprived  for  a 
space  of  the  power  of  doing  works,  and 
if  for  a time  a man  does  work  without 
faith  we  may  look  for  one  of  two  things 
to  happen,  either  faith  will  be  born  in 
him  or  the  works  will  die.  What  is  true 
for  the  individual  is  just  as  true  for  the 
Church.  Why  do  you  build  an  “Epis- 
copal Hospital”  here  in  Philadelphia? 
To  see  how  many  Americans  you  can 
baptize  therein?  I think  not.  Is  it  not 
rather  to  bear  witness  to  the  love  which, 
as  Christians,  you  claim  to  have  in  your 
hearts  for  your  fellows  ? Could  you 
preach  Christ’s  Gospel  of  love,  and  not 
live  it?  Would  intelligent  Americans 
believe  your  words  alone? 

What  is  true  for  America  is  more  true 
for  China.  If  the  dead  must  be  raised 
up  in  order  that  John  the  Baptist  should 
believe,  will  the  Chinese  be  convinced  on 
mere  hearsay?  And  so  we,  of  the 
American  Church,  built  St.  Luke’s  Hos- 
pital in  Shanghai  to  bear  witness  to  the 
vitality  of  our  faith,  to  illustrate  in  a 
practical  manner  the  love  that  the 
Church  teaches  in  theory. 

You  know  as  well  as  I do  that  very 
few  baptisms  take  place  within  the 
walls  of  a mission  hospital.  There  were 
but  two  during  the  past  year  in  St. 
Luke’s,  and  those  two  were  in  the  case 
of  patients  not  expected  to  live.  Are 
you  disappointed  in  the  showing?  How 
long  does  it  take  to  make  a Christian 
in  China?  It  is  the  mission  rule  that 
no  one  coming  out  of  heathenism  shall 
be  baptized  into  the  Church  until  a 


(16) 


DR.  JEFFERYS  AND  PATIENT  IN  THE  X-RAY  MACHINE  ROOM 


“I  Was  An  Hungered” 


17 


year  and  a half  have  been  lived  con- 
sistently from  the  time  he  became  an  in- 
quirer. How  many  patients  are  in  a 
hospital  for  this  time?  The  longest 
time  one  patient  has  been  in  St.  Luke’s 
in  recent  years  is  eight  months,  that  is 
ten  months  short  of  possible  baptism. 
No,  baptism  is  only  indirectly  and  not 
primarily  the  object  of  the  mission  hos- 
pital! What  then?  What  is  the  aim? 
tt  is  this : By  the  character  of  the  insti- 
tution and  by  the  quality  of  its  work. 


China  has  a working  theory  that  we  are 
not  there  to  baptize  all  the  Chinese  nor 
to  cure  all  the  Chinese.  The  first  would 
make  a weak  native  Church,  the  second 
would  pauperize  the  Chinese  at  the 
expense  of  the  American  public. 
Neither  end  is  to  be  desired.  What 
then  are  we  there  for?  Decidedly,  to 
plant  in  China  a strong  and  enduring 
Chinese  Church,  and  the  hospital,  in 
curing  the  sick  and  especially  in  plant- 
ing scientific  medicine  in  the  land,  is 


"THE  OPERATING  ROOM  IS  ABSOLUTELY  UP-TO-DATE  AND  EFFICIENT” 


to  make  it  absolutely  clear  to  the  Chi- 
nese people,  to  the  young  and  im- 
pressionable Church,  to  every  man, 
woman  and  child  who  steps  within  its 
doors,  and  to  the  whole  neighborhood, 
that  the  hospital  is  there  as  a living  ex- 
pression of  the  practical  and  helpful 
love  that  is  sounding  from  Calvary  and 
echoing  and  re-echoing  around  the 
world. 

Now  if  you  will  ask  me  how  the  hos- 
pital makes  that  clear,  I will  tell  you 
up  to  a certain  point. 

The  American  Church  Mission  in 


not  a means  to  the  end,  but  an  absolute- 
ly necessary  co-partner  in  the  work. 
Lor  success,  however,  two  things  are  req- 
uisite, that  the  seed  shall  be  good  seed 
and  that  it  shall  be  well  planted.  Only 
thus  may  we  trust  it  to  take  deep  root 
and  to  bring  forth  its  great  harvest  of 
the  future. 

Good  seed  and  well  planted!  Right 
here  is  where  St.  Luke’s  Hospital  makes 
a start.  It  does  not  recognize  that  cheap 
drugs,  hustled  patients,  lack  of  gentle- 
ness or  stuffy  wards  are  in  any  sense 
illustrative  of  Christian  love.  It  does 


18 


“I  Was  An 

not  recognize  that  poor  work  of  any 
kind  or  description  will  best  illustrate 
the  life  of  Jesus.  There  are  several 
streets  that  lead  to  St.  Luke’s  and  as  you 
come  down  them  you  will  notice  first  that 
the  hospital  is  surrounded  by  them  on 
all  sides,  and  that,  though  in  the  heart 
of  the  most  Chinesy  of  slums,  there  is 
an  abundance  of  light  and  fresh  air 
throughout.  You  will  next  see  that 
around  the  outside  wall  is  written  in 
large  Chinese  characters  this  text, 
“Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on 
earth  peace,  good  will  to  men” — one 
of  the  comparatively  few  isolated 
and  appropriate  texts  of  the  New 
Testament  that  could  not  fail  of  be- 
ing understood  by  every  Chinese  passer- 
by, old  or  young,  rich  or  poor.  Then, 
as  you  come  up  to  the  front  door 
you  will  find  a small  booth  at  one  side 
and  in  it  two  large  stone  hongs  which 
during  the  entire  hot  season  are  kept 
full  of  tea,  the  drink  of  the  natives,  and 
it  is  there  free  to  perhaps  a hundred 
thousand  coolies  who  daily  pass  the  hos- 
pital doors  at  their  labor.  Then  you 
will  ascend  the  steps  and  before  you 
have  entered  you  will  notice  a large 
brass  tablet  upon  the  wall  which  says 
plainly  in  Chinese  that  the  hospital  is 
built  “To  the  glory  of  God  and  in  thank- 
ful remembrance  of  His  mercies,”  and 
underneath,  also  in  Chinese, 

“0  triune  God,  with  heart  and  voice  ador- 
ing. 

Praise  we  the  goodness  that  doth  crown 
our  days.” 

From  there  on  I think  you  will  not 
turn  a corner  or  ascend  a step  without 
coming  face  to  face  with  some  evidence 
of  the  Christian  inspiration  of  the  in- 
stitution. The  roof-garden,  perhaps  the 
only  one  in  China,  is  for  the  poor.  The 
rich  have  a veranda  and  are  allowed  in 
the  roof -garden  if  there  is  room.  It  is 
half  glassed  in  and  half  open.  There  is 
a huge  wistaria  vine  up  there  and  ivy 
trailing  all  about.  It  is  full  of  palms 
and  flowers  and  gold-fish  and  highly 
colored  birds,  and  all  around  the  wall 
are  hand  paintings  of  the  parables  of 
Jesus,  made  expressly  for  the  Chinese 


Hungered  ” 

by  a Chinese  artist.  And  all  about  are 
sofas  and  comfortable  chairs  and  games 
for  the  patients,  and  on  the  main  wall 
the  simple  text,  “All  Thy  works  shall 
praise  Thee,  O Lord.” 

On  the  middle  floor  is  the  operating 
room.  It  is  the  prettiest  in  all  China, 
all  white  and  absolutely  up-to-date  and 
efficient.  It  is  furnished  “To  the  glory 
of  God  and  in  memory  of  a little  girl 
baby.’'’  You  know  what  the  Chinese 
think  of  girl  babies!  They  do  not  give 
them  much  of  a welcome  into  the  world. 
Often  they  are  sold  into  slavery  or  mere- 
ly disappear — the  preferable  fate  of  the 
two.  But  I think  that  not  many  Chi- 
nese who  owe  surcease  of  years  of  pain 
or  even  life  itself  to  that  operating 
room  will  read  that  inscription  without 
learning  a new  conception,  born  of  the 
Christian  estimate  of  “a  girl  baby.” 
There  is  a prayer  for  use  before  each 
operation.  Notice  how  simple  it  must 
be  for  all  to  understand : 

“All  powerful  Lord  of  Heaven! 
This  Thy  child  who  is  before  Thee 
is  sick.  We,  Thy  servants,  ask 
Thee  for  skilful  hands  and  for  wis- 
dom to  relieve  his  pain  and  cure 
his  body,  in  order  that  some  day 
he  may  understand  the  love  and 
mercy  of  his  Heavenly  Father  and 
return  thanks  to  Thee  and  come  to 
serve  Thee.  We  ask  it  all  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Saviour. 
Amen!" 

On  the  lower  floor  is  the  chapel,  as 
sweet  a place  of  worship  as  any  in  the 
whole  East,  and  it  too  is  “To  the  glory 
of  God.”  In  it  every  morning  the  pa- 
tients are  gathered  for  prayers  and 
there  we  may  at  any  time  talk  to  them 
quietly.  And  in  the  evening  it  is  open 
not  only  to  the  patients  but  to  the  street 
as  well  and  service  is  held  in  Shanghai, 
or  in  Cantonese,  or  in  Mandarin,  so  cos- 
mopolitan is  the  neighborhood.  Some 
of  the  nurses  are  faithful  Christians, 
so  are  the  native  physicians.  The  re- 
ligious instruction  is  under  the  charge 
of  the  Yen.  Archdeacon  Thomson,  for 
forty-five  years  a trained  evangelist,  and 
under  him  two  native  priests.  In  the 


“I  Was  An  Hungered 


19 


‘•TO  THE  HOSPITAL  COMES  THE  MAN  WITH 
A TUMOR  ON  HIS  BACK  LARGER 
THAN  HIS  HEAD” 

future  we  are  to  have  two  native  evan- 
gelists as  well,  who  will  give  their  un- 
divided time  to  this  work.  These,  be- 
sides holding  the  services,  spend  much 
of  their  time  in  the  wards  talking  to 
the  patients,  reading  to  them  and  learn- 
ing to  know  them,  especially  the  lone- 
ly ones  and  those  in  greatest  need. 

This  is  the  atmosphere  in  which  the 
physicians  do  their  work,  and  I can  tell 
you  that  men  who  give  their  lives  to 
that  service  and  give  up  this  wonder- 
ful home-land  of  America  for  China 
are  not  likely  to  lose  many  opportuni- 
ties of  doing  the  very  consummate 
thing  for  the  sake  of  which  they  made 
the  sacrifice,  nor  often  when  they  give 
the  cup  of  cold  water,  as  they  must  to 
each  and  every  sufferer,  to  fail  to  give 
it  distinctly  in  the  name  of  Christ. 
“Blessed  indeed  are  the  merciful,”  for 
they  are  His  very  own  disciples.  You 
know  His  estimate  of  discipleship ! I 
suppose  that  to  each  and  every  Chris- 
tian there  is  some  utterance  of  Jesus 
that  has  led  him  more  surely  through 
the  encircling  gloom  and  farther  over  the 
ocean’s  trackless  wastes  than  every 


other ! . . . I will  confess  to  you  that,  in 
the  journey  of  my  own  life,  the  pole- 
star  in  the  eternal  heaven  of  Christ’s 
spoken  words  is  the  passage  beginning: 
“Then  shall  the  King  say  unto  them. 
Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father!”  and 
ending : “Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one 
of  these  my  brethren,  even  these  least, 
ye  did  it  unto  me.”  Here,  in  the  mis- 
sion hospital,  the  hungry  are  fed,  and 
often  the  starving  are  fed  in  St.  Luke’s. 
Here  it  is  that  the  strangers  are  taken 
in,  yes,  and  made  welcome,  from  For- 
mosa on  the  East  to  far  Kashgar,  and 
find  friends.  And  the  naked  are  clothed, 
and  the  sick — but  for  them  we  live.  And 
the  prisoners — yes,  there  is  a special 
private  room  with  two  beds  for  men 
from  the  prisons  of  Shanghai.  To  do 
that  thing  in  His  name,  in  a hospital 
of  which  the  ideal  is  that  from  the  roof 
down  to  the  boiler  room  it  shall  talk 
aloud  of  love,  mercy,  tenderness  and 
the  spirit  and  life  of  Jesus,  is  that  not 
spiritual  work?  I tell  you  that  com- 
pared with  even  living  words  there  lives 
in  that  the  very  soul  and  spirit  of  all 
spirituality ! 


“A  GANGRENOUS  FOOT,  THE  RESULT  OF 
CHINESE  MALPRACTICE.  CURED  AT 
ST  LUKE’S  BY  SKIN-GRAFTING” 


20 


“I  Was  An  Hungered” 


Here  it  is  that  the  hard  ground  is 
broken  up  and  made  fertile.  Here 
where  a Chinese  who,  in  the  days  of  his 
prosperity,  could  he  have  been  coaxed 
into  a street  chapel,  would  nine  times 
out  of  ten  have  been  thinking  about  the 
queer  foreigner  until  the  subject  of  con- 
versation was  brought  around  to  relig- 
ion, and  when  he  was  told  that  life  was 
more  than  meat  would  just  then  have 
been  reminded  that  it  was  his  supper 
time  and  that  “he  must  go,”  but  who 
after  intolerable  suffering  over  a period 
of  five  years,  having  spent  his  all  on  the 
unspeakablenesses  of  native  surgery 
without  avail;  here  it  is,  I say,  that  he 
will  come  with  a tumor  larger  than  his 
head,  with  broken  health,  without  means 
and  hungry,  and  will  find  a welcome, 
and  a free  bed  (I  wish  there  were  more),* 

• One  thousand  dollars  will  establish  and 
maintain  a free  bed  in  St.  Luke’s  Hospital, 
Shanghai. 


food  and  shelter  and,  what  is  more,  a 
cure.  Here  it  is  that  three  weeks  or  a 
month  later,  as  a well  man,  he  may  be 
told  that  life  is  more  than  meat  and  he 
will  not  only  listen  but  believe,  and  be- 
cause of  his  faith  find  hope,  and  here  it 
is  that  he  may  be  told  at  last  that  love 
is  best,  and  he  will  believe  that  too,  for 
he  has  seen  it. 

Here  it  is  that  a tiny  apprentice  boy 
hobbled  after  starving  on  the  streets  of 
Shanghai  for  more  than  three  days,  hav- 
ing been  turned  out  by  his  master  be- 
cause he  could  not  walk  or  work  for 
very  agony,  and  when  he  came,  was 
cleaned  and  fed  and  cured  and  in  a 
month  doubled  his  weight,  and  after- 
ward was  not  returned  to  his  legal 
owner,  but  was  put  in  a Christian  school, 
where  he  has  proved  as  bright  and  happy 
as  the  day,  and  in  the  fulness  of  time 
has  been,  at  his  own  request,  baptized 


THE  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  OF  HOSPITAL  ’WORK 


This  lad,  homeless  and  friendless,  v'as  admitted  to  St.  Luke’s  Hospital  with  an  ulcerated  leg. 
Two  months  of  skilful  care  and  nursing  entirely  transformed  him  physically  and  removed  all 
dislike  of  foreigners. 


21 


‘■I  Was  An  Hungered” 


and  lives  to-day  a consistent  Chinese 
Christian. 

The  hospital  does  make  Christians, 
the  hospital  does  plow  up  the  hardest 
ground  and  make  it  fertile,  the  hospital 
does  reach  high  and  low  and  far  and 
wide;  . . . but  the  mission  of  the  hos- 
pital is  to  work  the  works  of  Christian 
love,  without  which  our  faith  is  dead 
indeed,  and  with  which  the  gracious 
flowers  of  Christian  faith  and  works. 


growing  side  by  side,  come  into  fullest 
fruition  in  China.  If  there  be  on  earth  a 
sweeter  work  or  a more  spiritual,  I know 
it  not ! This  work  is  yours,  yours  though 
you  have  never  seen  it!  Blessed  are 
those  who  have  not  seen  and  yet  have 
believed!  For  it  alone,  in  the  eternal 
harvest  of  love,  the  King  will  some  day 
say  unto  you,  “Far  away  in  China  I 
was  sick  and  ye  visited  me.  Well 
done !” 


JAMES  ADDISON  INGLE.  M.A. 

BORN  MARCH  llTH,  1867 
DIED  DECEMBER  7TH,  1903 

FIRST  MISSIONARY  BISHOP  OF  HANKOW 

1902-1903 


(22) 


YE  LOVE  ME”* 

THE  PLACE  OF  LOVE  IN  MISSION  WORK 
BY  W.  H.  JEFFERYS,  A.M.,  M.D. 


IT  is  my  desire  and  purpose  to-day  to 
pass  over  the  local  consideration  of 
medical  mission  work  in  Shanghai 
and  to  speak  to  you  concerning  a 
broader  aspect  of  Christian  missions,  to 
speak  to  you  concerning  “The  Place  of 
Love  in  Mission  Work.”  And  I would 
say  at  the  outset,  in  case  anyone  here 
might  think  for  a moment  that  this  is 
the  less  practical  of  the  two  subjects, 
and  that  we  laymen  and  physicians  are 
expected  to  speak  practically  and  not  to 
preach,  that  mission  work  in  its  very 
broadest  sense  is  but  another  name  for 
the  practice  of  Christian  love;  that 
where  the  practice  of  Christian  love  be- 
gins, there  Christian  missions  begin, 
even  if  it  be  between  husband  and  wife, 
and  where  it  ends  there  Christian  mis- 
sions end,  in  the  home  circle  or  in  the 
Arctic  Circle. 

“If  ye  love  Me,  keep  My  command- 
ments !” 

First  Commandment  — “Thou 
Shalt  love  thy  God!” 

Second  Commandment  — “Thou 
Shalt  love  thy  neighbor!” 

Last  Commandment  — “Go  ye, 
make  disciples  of  all  the  nations, 
teaching  them  to  observe  my  com- 
mandments.” 

On  those  three  commandments  hangs 
the  whole  subject  of  Christian  missions. 
Yes,  love  is  practical  in  mission  work, 
for  love  is  mission  work!  It  is  its  in- 
spiration, it  is  its  power  and  it  is  its 
consummation. 

Love,  in  the  beginning  and  ever  since 
has  been  the  inspiration  of  mission 
work,  for  God,  who  is  love,  so  loved  the 
world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son  to  be  the  first  and  greatest  of  mis- 
sionaries. And  Jesus  said  unto  Peter, 
the  fisherman,  in  the  beginning,  “Follow 
Me  and  I will  make  you  a fisher  of 
men,”  and  at  the  end,  “Simon,  lovest 

* Kn  address  deliTerrd  at  All  Saints’  Church.  Fred- 
erick, Md.,  April  13th.  I'JOS. 


thou  Me  more  than  these”  love  Me?  and 
then  “Feed  My  sheep.”  And  unto  that 
man,  the  first  bishop  of  the  Christian 
Church,  were  given  the  keys  of  heaven 
because  he  loved  most. 

How  is  it  that  China  and  Japan  do 
not  send  us  missionaries  to  propagate 
the  faiths  of  Buddha  and  Confucius  and 
Lao-tsz  at  an  expense  to  themselves  of 
millions  of  dollars  a year?  Theirs  are 
great  religions.  Is  it  because  their  re- 
ligions are  not  true?  No,  for  their  re- 
ligions have  much  truth;  right  and 
wrong,  awards  and  penalties,  future  life, 
powers  above.  I sometimes  think  that  if 
there  had  never  been  a Christ,  the  whole 
Anglo-Saxon  world  would  have  adopted 
Confucian  morality.  What  then  is  the 
reason  ?'^It  is  not  a question  of  truth. 
It  is  a question  of  love.  It  is  because 
there  is  hardly  enough  love  in  all  the 
composite  religions  of  the  East  to  make  a 
Chinese  care  a copper  cash  whether  any- 
one else  believes  them  or  not,  while 
Christianity  has  enough  love  in  it  to 
make  it  care  everything  whether  it 
shares  its  life  or  not.  Christianity  has 
the  inspiration,  not  of  a good  code  of 
temporal  morality,  but  of  a surpassing 
life  of  eternal  love. 

Not  all  Christians  believe  in  mis- 
sions! Someone  loved  enough  to  think 
it  worth  while  to  make  Christians  of  us. 
If  we  do  not  think  it  worth  while  to 
pass  it  on,  someone  wasted  a lot  of  valu- 
able time!  But  the  Church  has  one  best 
of  reasons  for  thinking  that  the  town  of 
Frederick  believes  in  Christian  mis- 
sions.* 

Then  love  is  the  power  of  Christian 
missicms.  Jesus  trained  Paul  too  and 
sent  him  to  be  the  first  bishop  to  the 
Gentiles.  And  St.  Paul’s  experience 
was  this : In  labors,  in  stripes,  in 
deaths  oft,  thrice  beaten,  once  stoned, 

* ThB  late  Bishop  Ingle  of  Hankow  was  born  in 
Frederick  and  grew  up  in  All  Saints'  parish,  of  which 
his  father,  the  Rev,  Osborne  Ingle,  was  then,  as  he 
still  is,  the  rector. 


(23) 


24 


“If  Ye  Love  Me” 


in  shipwrecks,  in  the  deep,  in  perils  un- 
numbered, in  weariness,  in  hunger  and 
thirst,  in  cold  and  nakedness,  I,  Paul,  am 
more.  Yet  . . . “if  I bestow  all  my  goods 
to  feed  the  poor,  and  if  I give  my  body 
to  be  burned  and  have  not  love,  it  profit- 
eth  me  nothing.”  Some  people  suppose 
that  Christian  missions  are  halting  be- 
cause of  lack  of  funds.  By  no  means! 
They  are  halting  because  some  Chris- 
tians lack  love.  When  our  love  grows 
large  enough,  there  will  be  funds  and  to 
spare.  I hear  that  one  of  the  Presby- 
terian secretaries  said  recently,  “We 
need  lives,  not  funds.”  If  there  were  as 
much  surplus  Christian  love  in  this 
country  as  there  is  surplus  Christian 
cash — so  far  does  love  go  in  mission 
work — I believe  that  the  love  and  the 
money  that  would  indicate  the  love, 
would  be  enough  to  buy  China,  per- 
haps the  world,  for  Christ.  The 
mission  accounts  at  the  Church 
Missions  House  in  New  York  are 
merely  the  thermometer  that  regis- 
ters the  warmth  of  the  home  Church’s 
fire.  Some  of  the  coals  near  the  centre 
are  already  at  white  heat  and  the  fire 
is  spreading.  Remember,  to  the  luke- 
warm, Christ  says,  “I  would  thou  wert 
cold  or  hot.”  It  is  the  lukewarm  Chris- 
tians that  stand  between  Christ’s  love 
and  the  men  and  women  who  have  never 
heard  thereof.  It  is  lukewarm  Christi- 
anity that  gave  opium  to  China. 

It  has,  more  than  once,  been  said  to 
me  in  this  country,  “Do  you  really  pre- 
tend that  you  can  love  the  Chinese?” 
In  this  country,  mind  you,  and  by  the 
very  same  kind  of  women  who  love  pug 
dogs  and  send  them  out  in  their  car- 
riages for  the  fresh  air  and  have  them 
wear  overshoes  when  the  pavements  are 
damp  and  goggles  in  their  automobiles! 
I too  like  some  dogs,  but  I tell  you 
frankly,  I would  rather  play  with  a 
jolly  Chinese  baby  for  an  hour  than 
with  all  the  pug  dogs  I have  ever  seen, 
until  the  end  of  time.  Yet,  if  by  love 
is  meant,  do  we  like  to  fondle  and  caress 
the  Chinese,  do  we  prefer  them  as  a race 
to  Americans,  would  we  like  to  see  this 
country  overrun  with  them  in  their  pres- 


ent state  of  morality? — in  that  sense 
we  do  not  love  the  Chinese.  We  do  not, 
however,  call  that  love,  we  call  that  sen- 
timentality. But  if  by  love  is  meant 
the  love  that  suffereth  long  and  is  kind, 
that  seeketh  not  her  own,  that  beareth 
all  things,  believeth  all  things,  hopeth 
all  things,  endureth  all  things,  in  that 
sense  it  is  not  a matter  of  pretence,  it 
is  a simple  fact  that  we  love  the  Chi- 
nese. 

The  other  day  a medical  student  vol- 
unteer asked  me,  “To  what  should  I give 
most  attention  in  preparation  for  mis- 
sion work  in  Shanghai  ?”  Drummond 
answered  that  question  once  and  for  all, 
and  the  answer  is,  love.  Give  your  at- 
tention to  Christian  love!  If  it  is  the 
greatest  thing  in  the  Kingdom  of  God, 
you  may  be  very  sure  that  it  is  the 
greatest  need  in  the  extension  of  the 
kingdom ! “If  I speak  with  the  tongues 
of  men  and  of  angels  and  have  not  love, 
I am  become  as  sounding  brass,”  and 
had  better  stay  home.  And  no  one  can 
read  that  chapter  without  thinking  of 
what  Henry  Drummond  said  about  it, 
and  this  is  one  thing  he  said : “You 
(missionaries)  can  take  nothing  greater 
to  the  heathen  than  the  impression  and 
reflection  of  the  love  of  God  upon  your 
character — nothing!  That  is  the  uni- 
versal language.  It  will  take  you  years 
to  speak  Chinese,  or  the  dialects  of  In- 
dia. From  the  day  you  land,  that  lan- 
guage of  love,  understood  by  all,  will  be 
going  forth  from  you.” 

That  is  literally  true!  How  often  do 
we  prove  it  in  China ! The  first  sur- 
gical operation  I was  called  upon  to  per- 
form in  China,  before  I knew  a hundred 
words  of  the  language,  was  upon  a 
young  boy  who  had  been  brutally  struck 
in  the  chest  by  an  Englishman  with  a 
hoe.  The  corner  of  the  hoe  had  pene- 
trated the  lung,  and  in  Chinese  hands  he* 
would  certainly  have  died,  but  in  St. 
Luke’s  Hospital  he  recovered.  After- 
ward I visited  him  in  his  home,  and  on 
the  way  the  village  children  hooted  at 
me  and  called  me  “foreign  devil,”  but 
when  I came  to  the  sick  boy’s  house  I 
was  received  as  a friend.  And  though  I 


“If  Ye  Love  Me” 


25 


could  not  talk  to  her  in  words,  the 
mother  of  the  house  was  eager  to  show 
me  her  home  and  worldly  possessions  and 
to  explain  to  me  how  to  make  thread.  The 
language  of  love  had  been  understood. 

How  is  it  possible  to  love  the  Chi- 
nese? One  day  I was  working  in  the 
wards  of  St.  Luke’s  Hospital  when  a 
Chinese  visiting  card  was  brought  to 
me.  It  meant  that  a gentleman  was 
downstairs.  When  I came  into  the 
waiting-room,  however,  he  was  not  there. 
I found  him  out  in  the  street  standing 
by  a rickshaw  in  which  sat  a ragged 
coolie,  who  was  suflFering  from  a severe 
hemorrhage  from  the  throat.  The  gen- 
tleman, who  was  dressed  in  a long 
brocaded  blue  silk  gown,  tortoise  shell 
spectacles,  etc.,  said,  “I  found  this  poor 
fellow  in  front  of  my  house  on  the  pave- 
ment and  brought  him  to  the  hospital. 
I want  you  to  receive  him  and  care  for 
him  until  he  is  well.”  Now  they  have  a 
delightful  custom  in  China,  which  is  all 
but  universal,  that  when  a sick  man  is 
found  on  one’s  front  pavement  (and  you 
know  it  is  a common  thing  to  find  peo- 
ple dying  of  disease,  starvation  or  old 
age  on  the  streets  of  a Chinese  city),  the 
only  sensible  thing  to  do  is  to  move  him 
promptly  on  to  the  pavement  of  one’s 
next  door  neighbor,  for  if  he  should  be 
so  inconsiderate  as  to  die,  the  law  would 
require  that  the  person  on  whose  pave- 
ment he  died  should  attend  to  and  pay 
for  his  funeral.  A sick  man  may  be 
imagined  as  travelling  quite  a distance 
in  the  course  of  an  afternoon  of  being 
“moved  on.”  No  one  would  ordinarily 
think  of  taking  in  a poor  stranger  to 
die  on  one’s  hands.  Quite  the  contrary, 
an  inn-keeper  will  invariably  put  one 
out  if  there  seems  any  likelihood  of  such 
an  event.  My  visitor  had  done  other- 
wise. He  had  put  the  man  in  a rick- 
shaw and  walked  by  his  side  to  the  hos- 
pital. He  was  insistent  that  we  should 
“do  all  that  we  could  for  the  sick  man,” 
and  at  the  same  time  put  into  my  hands 
enough  money  to  cover  the  cost  of  the 
patient’s  maintenance  for  a week.  As 
he  went  away  he  left  his  address  saying, 
“Wlratever  more  is  required  for  him  I 


will  gladly  pay.”  And  that  man  was  a 
heathen  Chinese ! 

How  is  it  possible  to  love  such  a man  ? 
How  on  earth,  rather,  could  any  man 
with  an  ounce  of  heart  possibly  help 
loving  such  a man  ? If  we  had  seen  him 
on  the  road  to  Jericho  instead  of  on 
Nanzing  Road,  Shanghai,  we  should 
have  known  him  in  an  instant  for  a 
man  that  the  world  honors  for  his  so- 
lution of  the  question,  “Who  is  my 
neighbor?”  Why,  to  love  such  a man  is 
almost  like  loving  one’s  own  brother. 
Practical  Christian  love  hardly  calls 
that  loving,  to  love  a man  whose  lovable 
qualities  are  written  all  over  him,  from 
head  to  foot.  That  is  merely  living. 
Love  seems  rather  to  start  when  the 
love-inspiring  qualities  of  the  object  ap- 
pear a bit  obscure,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
Chinese  professional  beggar,  for  in- 
stance, a human  parasite  whose  stock 
in  trade  is  a painted  sore,  whose  home, 
a beggar  boat,  about  the  size  of  a ship’s 
dory,  is  shared  with  from  eight  to  ten 
other  pigs,  human  or  otherwise,  as  the 
case  may  be — and  all  foul  beyond  refined 
words.  A woman  whose  conjugal  part- 
ner is  as  likely  as  not  her  own  brother 
or  even  her  father — a wholly  unmoral 
and  hardly  human  being.  Such  an  one 
came  to  St.  Luke’s  Hospital  one  winter. 
She  was  almost  a wild  animal,  so 
frightened  that  for  four  visits  she 
would  not  speak.  She  was  covered  with 
vermin,  filthy  and  a leper.  But  she  was 
given  a welcome  and  found  some  relief 
from  the  intolerable  misery  that  had 
driven  her  to  us,  and  very  gradually  her 
wild  heart  yielded  and  finally  became 
quite  friendly,  until,  after  many  days, 
when  the  time  came  for  her  beggar  boat 
to  move  away,  she  brought  to  the  hos- 
pital what  might  be  called  her  widow’s 
mite  of  love,  the  only  thing  she  had  to 
offer  in  return  for  what  had  been  done 
for  her,  her  one  great  possession  on 
earth  for  us  to  see  it,  her  leper  baby. 
She  never  became  a professing  Chris- 
tian, but  she  too  understood  the  lan- 
guage of  love,  and  I think  that  I speak 
for  all  medical  missionaries  when  I say 
that  we  count  it  among  our  truest 


(26) 


MISS  MARGARET  E,  BENDER.  HEAD  NURSE.  AND  CHINESE  ORDERLIES 


“If  Ye  Love  Me’’ 


honors  that  we  are  able  to  reckon  a few 
of  such  of  Christ’s  very  least  of  least 
ones,  in  the  number  of  our  friends. 

“Charity  begins  at  home  ” Yes,  that 
is  true.  It  began  in  that  far-off  prime- 
val home  when  some  great,  but  still  un- 
human, ancestor  tore  limb  from  limb  a 
fellow  brute  and  first  shared  the  prey 
with  his  savage  mate  and  offspring;  but 
charity  will  only  end  at  the  ends  of  the 
world.  Home  missions  are  good,  they 
are  the  expression  of  love  for  those 
about  us,  for  those  whom  we  know  and 
understand  and  feel  for.  But  foreign 
missions  are  love  reaching  out,  love 
grown  larger,  so  as  to  feel  for  the 
stranger;  strong  hands  held  out  to  those 
who  never  can  repay;  a refinement  of 
love  which  the  Church  must  yet  in  large 
measure  attain  unto.  Home  missions 
are  bread  given  to  one’s  own  children, 
our  duty  of  course.  Foreign  missions 
are  flowers  for  a sick  child  in  the  hos- 
pital, for  some  of  us  also,  duty,  though 
the  child  can  never  make  return  and  to 
many  his  very  name  may  be  unknown. 
“I  was  a stranger  and  ye  took  me  in,” 
into  your  love! 

And  love  is  the  final  goal  of  Chris- 
tian missions.  It  is  the  end  of  the  evo- 
lution of  Christian  life,  the  very  con- 
summation of  the  Church  of  Ged;  act- 
ually that  “one  far-off  divine  event  to 
which  the  whole  creation  moves,”  when 
out  of  the  awful  chaos  of  the  conflicts 
of  selfishness,  whether  it  be  of  war  or  of 
financial  greed  or  of  personal  aggrandize- 
ment, shall  come  the  world’s  great  har- 
mony of  Christian  fellowship;  when  out 
of  the  utter  brute  of  our  animal  origin 
shall  rise  up  such  souls  of  love  as  even 
God  only  makes  through  countless  years 
of  patience;  when  not  only  our  next 
door  neighbor  knows  that  God  is  love, 
but  in  the  larger  reaches  of  Christian 
love,  every  human  soul,  be  he  good 
Samaritan  or  Chinese  beggar  leper, 
from  Bethlehem,  the  centre  of  the  world, 
to  the  last  man,  shall  have  heard  and  be- 
lieved that  God  is  Love  because  Christ 
and  fellow-men  so  greatly  loved  that 
they  called  them  friends  and  gave  their 
lives  to  prove  it. 


27 

There  was  a Christ-like  man  who 
gave  his  life  for  China.*  It  was  given 
to  him  to  feed  the  sheep  and  be  their 
shepherd  because,  I believe,  he  loved 
mo.'"?  than  these.  It  was  his  ever  pres- 
ent » leal  of  mission  work  to  plant  the 
Church  firmly,  to  train  up  a few  strong 
native  Christians  upon  whose  faith  the 
Church  in  China  should  stand  as  upon 
the  solid  rock,  and  I tell  you  that  when 
the  day  shall  come  that  Christ’s  little 
flock  in  China  can  count  among  its 
number  ten  such  Christians  as  the  man 
of  whom  I speak,  the  future  Christian- 
ity of  China  will  be  an  assured  fact. 
He  gave  his  body  to  be  burned,  and  it 
profited  much,  for  he  loved  much.  I 
speak  as  of  one  who  knew  him  least  and 
only  as  a fellow  worker,  yet  I knew  him 
well  enough  to  go  to  him  in  trouble.  It 
was  at  the  time  of  the  Anglo-American 
Episcopal  Conference,  the  last  time  he 
was  in  Shanghai  and  the  last  time  I 
ever  saw  him.f  A fellow  worker J and  I 
had  so  greatly  differed  and  each  so  firm- 
ly believed  himself  in  the  right  that  it 
seemed  to  be  a hopeless  block  to  our  co- 
operative work.  I told  Bishop  Ingle  of 
the  affair,  for  I wanted  his  help  in  the 
matter,  and  I expected  him  to  ask  mi- 
nutely of  the  rights  and  wrongs  thereof. 
But  not  so,  nothing  was  further  from 
his  thoughts.  All  he  said  was,  “Doctor, 
if  we  foreign  workers  cannot  manage 
to  live  together  in  Christian  love,  how 
can  we  hope  to  teach  the  Chinese  to  live 
so?  Our  many  differences  and  eccen- 
tricities are  for  discipline,  and  serve  as 
our  finest  opportunities  of  showing  the 
natives  how  Christians  live  together  in 
peace.”  And  the  conversation  ended 
right  there,  and  so  did  the  quarrel.  Yes ! 
In  mission  work  love  is  the  supreme 
thing.  So  quietly  was  the  lesson  taught, 
but  I for  one  shall  never  forget  it.  Do  you, 
people  of  Frederick,  wonder  that  I have 
chosen  to  tell  it  to  you,  of  all  people,  and 
ask  you  to  remember  it  with  me  until 
the  day  when  we  shall  see  him  whom 
we  love  face  to  face? 

* The  reference  ia  to  the  late  Bishop  Ingle. 

t October,  1903. 

t By  no  means  my  good  colleague,  Ur.  Boone. 


'J^  'HIS  pamphlet  can  be  obtained  from 
the  Corresponding  Secretary,  28/ 
Fourth  Avenue,  New  York,  by  asking  for 
No.  247. 


Price,  10  Cents  a Copy^ 


Third  Edition,  October,  1908. 


(%M.) 


S.  P. 


